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In a global context of change and transformations toward a more equalitarian and sustainable model, respectful with nature, the speech and memory of land workers is land’s speech. Fights in Andalusia for land’s rights have been a continuum for a long time. Especially during the last two centuries of rural workers’ fights for land rights to face the agrarian capitalism in a territory which has mainly a communitarian and rural tradition. Memory and speeches of social and rural movements asking for a life in rural areas are a social and cultural patrimony which is very rich and essential for nowadays ecological social movements but also in rural and labor movements. This historical archive has been created for all these reasons. It is the first one related to rural fights and processes in Europe. We conceive it as a seed which can give strength to processes of social thinking towards food sovereignty as well as agro-ecology, not only within Andalusia but also in an international context.

Description of the project. Main features, strengths and differentials.

The first Archive of Rural Studies in Europe is a project of organization and cataloguing of very document conserved of social and politics fights in rural areas, social movements in defense of food sovereignty and agro-ecologic investigations developed since the second half of the 20th century until present times here, in Andalusia. It aims to be a common place for the digital storage of photographs, documents, spoken interviews, bibliography and all sort of material which would be available, for any researcher or social movement, on the internet. The headquarters will be located in the Instituto de Sociología y Estudios Campesinos (ISEC) (Sociology and Rural Studies Institute) in Universidad de Córdoba. Its major goal is, however, to digitalize its contents and to catalogue them in the website in order to make it useful for researchers and social movements which are cooperating to achieve food sovereignty, but also for the general public. The final aim of this archive of rural studies is to give value to all the historical documentation, written and spoken, in favor of current investigations and professionals concerned with this subject as well as for social movements which are fighting for agro-ecology and food sovereignty as this archive can offer an unique testimony of the fights over land rights and investigations on food sovereignty. Access to the sources of information for rural fights would become easier due to the information which is already gathered in the ISEC plus the contributions of researchers and social rural movements. Furthermore, the archive would also contain a section with spoken testimonies of people who carried out these fights for land rights and democracy in rural areas of Andalusia. Therefore, the file will have a triple function:
As a formation tool for social movements towards agro-ecology and food sovereignty
As a bank of ideas and documents where researchers can take advantage of other investigations.
As a mean of union between a physical and virtual site, containing documents and academic works of rural social movements in order to build bonds and shared opinions.

Why this is important

This project is addressed mainly to two different groups: to social movements and to the academic sector, but also to any group whose aim is to contribute with memories, faces and oral account of the history, which during centuries has been defending food sovereignty and whose testimony is World Heritage. Our aim is to transform this Heritage in a digital and collective heritage for free access. This is a project of management of different files and documents. It comes from the necessity of management, description, reproduction, maintenance, restoration, identification, valuation and recovery of historical documents gathered and which are the result from previous investigations and which are supposed to have high historical and patrimonial value. This necessity comes from the lack of previous archives about rural studies and investigations about agro-ecology, which are important nowadays in Andalusia as well as in other countries and which deal with the economic, social and employment conditions of Agrarian and rural union trades in Andalusia from the moment of Franco’s dictatorship and the process of democratization to present days, as well as other international sceneries and different historical periods. The Rural Studies Archive is addressed to researchers, to every student, professionals and researchers on Social Sciences from a new perspective towards freedom and emancipation, especially to those who work on rural, ecological or food sovereignty issues. This archive is also directed to every person who works for the Democratic Memory in Andalusia, for the memory of the development of democracy in rural areas as well as in cities of Andalusia. Our archive is also suitable for every person whose aim is to enrich rural and agrarian memory from social activist groups in rural lands and their fights over land rights, for social basic services, for the preservation of the environment, to sum up for those who are fighting for a living rural world. It aims to be a self-training tool for social activism as well as a site were different ecologic fights and experiences will be shared.

Goals of the crowdfunding campaign

The Rural Studies Archive can’t become a reality without a collective project of support given by all those people who are aware of the necessity of recovering our rural and labor memory coming from social activism of rural areas, and who have fought thoroughly to change an unfair reality. We are asking for support in order to get the minimum conditions to be able to work on the project, until it can become a reality. We would need funding to purchase a computer, scanner and a camera in order to digitalize our materials, among which we count more than 200 boxes full of documents. Furthermore we would also need to create a web site functioning as digital platform and where all these documents and information will be uploaded.

We would also need support to move around Andalusia in order to make interviews to those people who starred different activist processes in different parts of Andalusia. We would also require means of transport as well as assistance for life expenses in order to be able to face a search for lost testimonies.
If we can overtake the economic obstacle and get the funding needed for this project, we would also spread this project internationally as we will be editing a digital publication every year. It would be an annual magazine about social sciences and rural studies, and in which investigations on rural and agrarian history in Andalusia as well as activist and resistance social movements will be published, not only in Andalusia but at a global level.
The last of our main objective is to organize meetings of young people who are investigation on social sciences related to rural activism. These meetings would be useful for critical thinking and debate.

Previous experience and team

It is worth mentioning the collaboration during a long period of the Instituto de Estudios Campesinos y Sociologia and Universidad Internacional de Andalucía (Andalusian International University) in the development of post degree studies such as Post degree on Agro-ecology: an Approach for rural sustainability or a course on International Food Sovereignty and Rising Agro-ecology. This initiative has been driven by the Group of Rural Studies of Juan Díaz del Moral and as a result of his academic relationship with professor Eduardo Sevilla Guzmán and his teaching and researchers colleagues from the Instituto de Sociología Estudios Campesina at Universidad de Córdoba as well as of the activist and vital particpation from the members of The Group of Rural Studies of Juan Díaz del Moral and the labor rural activism in Andalusia, which all of them belong to.
The ISEC as well as many land activists have the will of giving free access to files and historic documents addressed to anyone who is willing to investigate and know more about our history.

Team and experience

Group of Rural Studies Juan Díaz del Moral

Angel Calle is researcher and member of the Instituto de Sociología y estudios Campesinos of Universidad de Córdoba and from Universidad Internacional de Andalucía. He is a professor on rural sociology and agro-ecology. He works on issues such as political agro-ecology, common wealth and new global activism. Among his publications we find Nuevos Movimientos Globales or Democracia Radical. He has also participated in many collective works related to agro-ecology, social activism, democracy as well as different participative social movements.

Curro Moreno, from Jaén, is an historian and an activist in the Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores, SAT (Andalusian Workers Union Trade). He is a member of the Grupo de Estudios Juan Díaz del Moral. He has a degree in history at Universidad de Granada and he has done a post graduate on Formación de Pofesorado de Secundaria obligatoria y Bachillerato (Secondary teacher formation). He has researched on a didactic purpose for developing Food Sovereignty and investigating on La Democratización del mundo rural andaluz: El caso del Sindicato de Obreros del Campo. (Andalusian rural areas: The case of Sindicato de Obreros del Campo [Andalusian labor trade union]).

Nestor Salvador, historian from Granada and activist in the Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores (SAT). He is a member of the study group of Juan Díaz del Moral. He is doing his Doctoral thesis at the Contemporary History department of the same university. His thesis deals with the democratization of rural and labor movement in Andalusia. He carried out his post degree on ‘Claves para el mundo contemporaneo’ (Keys for contemporary world) at Universidad de Granada, doing a research on the democratization in La Democratización del mundo rural andaluz: El caso del Sindicato de Obreros del Campo (Andalusian rural areas: Sindicato de Obreros del Campo [Andalusian labor trade union]).

Coline Souzion is an anthropologist from Lyon as well as a researcher on rural fights in Andalusia. She has a degree in Politics and anthropologist science at Lyon University. There she did her final project of the degree on ‘la “Historia de las lucha por la tierra en el pueblo de Jódar” (History on fights over land rights in Jódar). Nowadays she is studying a post degree on Anthropology, Society and Transformations at Sorbona University, Paris, and whose final project will deal with Rural Andalusian fights for the rule and rights over the land in contemporary Andalusia.

Luis Olano Ereña, has a degree in Arabic philology at Universidad de Granada and a post degree in Documental Film Edition and Montage, specialized in history. He has taken part in different activist movements, using documental films as his major tool. He co-directed the film Al Margen del Sendero: Autonomía, ruralidad y Resistencia. (Out of the Path: Autonomy, Rurality and Resistance), in which was studied economical anthropology compared to experiences in Aineto and Marinaleda. He is also an audiovisual producer and technician for music bands such as Boikot and Reincidentes as well as institutions as the Instituto Cervantes.

Javier Garcia Fernandez, from Almeria, is historian and activist in the Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores (SAT, Andalusian Workers Trade Union). He is also member of the Grupo de Estudios Juan Díaz del Moral and of the Sociology and Rural Studies Institute in Universidad de Córdoba. He has a degree on History in Universidad de Granada. He carried out a post degree study on Contemporary Spain within an international context at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia where he is developing his work of research on the History of Rural and Labor Workers Social Movement in Contemporary Andalusia. He also co-directed a documental film: Al Margen del Sendero: Autonomía, ruralidad y Resistencia. (Out of the Path: Autonomy, Rurality and Resistance). In this film was studied anthropology compared to experiences in Aineto and Marinaleda.